


Pegasus' Choice

by Bythia



Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, M/M, One sentence prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23357251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bythia/pseuds/Bythia
Summary: The mission to the Genii is interrupted by a, for earth standards unprecedented, choosing of Sentinels and Guides. The ripples of this choosing may change more than just the destiny of the expedition.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 18
Kudos: 336
Collections: Suggested Good Reads





	Pegasus' Choice

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Pegasus' Wahl](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24487810) by [Bythia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bythia/pseuds/Bythia)



> The Prompt: “Since arriving on Atlantis, no one had been offered the choice to be a sentinel or guide until the day they were to meet the Genii.”
> 
> I had this interpretation of the prompt above in my head, since I read the stories for it from Keira Marcos and Jilly James some time last year. I tried to write it out in German and it just wouldn’t happen. Probably because I never read a Sentinel story in German and I had a big problem to translate all the terms and concepts I absorbed from the fandom. To write it down in English was no problem at all.
> 
> There may or may not be more of this 'verse someday. It's there in my head, but I'm undecided if I want to sit down and write it out. At the moment, there are other projects on my agenda.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters or anything of this world. I just borrowed them to play a little bit, and I don't make money with the stories I borrowed them for. But the words are mine, so please don't copy them to use them as your own.

John leaned back in his chair and took in the reactions of the people in the room with him with all his senses. Besides him and his Guide there were four other newly chosen S&G-pairs in the room and all of them were relaxed and looking to him for directions. His own Guide was working on his Laptop but John knew, he wasn’t missing a word.

Sargent Bates was rigid and anxious, but for the first time since coming to Atlantis John had no doubt, that the soldier was in his corner. Ford was nervous, but somehow he could keep it under wrap and looked utterly relaxed. Teyla was quietly observing, curious and confused by the whole situation. Dr. Becket was exited but irritated over the discussion he was witnessing. And Elizabeth Weir at last was a whole bunch of negativity, that John couldn’t even begin to dismantle.

It was barely a week since John had been chosen as a Sentinel and the use of his heightened senses came with a lot more instinctual control than he had been let to believe back on earth. While in Afghanistan, he had witnessed two choosings. Both times the new Sentinel and Guide pair had been sequestered for up to a week and thereafter had to undertake a special training for nearly a month, before they had come back to the field.

John and Rodney, who was to his great relief his Guide, had spend three days in one of the isolationrooms after the choosing. And while there had been sense-spikes for John and more than one problem with Rodney’s newly discovered empathy, they both knew on an instinctual level how to handle these situation together, without letting them get out of control.

It wasn’t the only thing about their situation that was way out of the norm. Sentinels and Guides were rare back on Earth. In the first world countries, there hadn’t been a choosing in many decades, if one overlooked the case of Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg. Soldiers in combat zones were chosen regularly, but there weren’t a lot of them and none had made it home alive in a long time. (That bore an implication John wouldn’t think about as long as they didn’t even had a chance of contact with Earth.)

The only places, where Sentinels and Guides were common on Earth, were the native tribes. In the rest of the Milkyway they were known but hunted relentlessly by the Goa’uld, as far as John knew. Never in the better documented part of history about Sentinels and Guides on Earth, that span roughly the last two hundred years, was more than one pair chosen at the same time.

The powers that be, probably in the first place those with a military background, had expected that there would be a choosing on the Atlantis-Expedition. The way their expedition charter was worded left no doubt in Johns mind, even if Elizabeth Weir seemed utterly perplexed about the choosing. But no one would or could have expected, that there would be not one or even two pairs chosen, but five. Or that not both Sentinel and Guide would be soldiers, something that hold true for only two of their new pairs.

“We can’t change the charter”, John said, repeating himself for the third time. “And we can’t just discount the charter. We are not at a point where we should let go of the hope to reconnect with Earth, and therefore we have to uphold the premises of our expedition. And that means, as of a week ago this is a military led expedition and being the highest ranking officer makes me the leader.”

He wasn’t exactly happy about this change, but it was preferable to Weir leading the expedition. If he hadn’t had to discuss with her on their very first day in Pegasus, maybe he could have been in time to rescue Sumner. He hadn’t liked his CO and in return had been hated by the man, but that didn’t lessen his grief or his guilt.

“It states the new pair would be directly under the command of the leading military officer. As a Sentinel you can’t be the leading officer, Major Sheppard!” Weir said with a hard voice. She had a difficult time to conceal her disdain for the situation even from the mundanes. Her feelings weren’t even remotely a mystery to any of the ten newly chosen people of the expedition.

Bates cleared his throat. “Frankly, Ma’am, that’s a leap of logic, that has absolutely no foundation in the charter or the UCMJ. To deny Major Sheppard the lead of our mission would be a violation of both. With all the problems we will take back to Earth, there is no room for any of us to appear anything but upright.”

John was still surprised how irritated the sergeant was by Weir and on his behalf. He hadn’t had a good start with most of the military on the city and in the last week John had learned, that Sumner had spread the knowledge of his black mark far and wide under the members of the expedition. He had no idea, how he had warranted this unprofessional behaviour from his late CO.

John’s fellow soldiers had grudgingly respected him after Sumner’s death, and only because he had fought with all he had for the rescue-mission, he was sure. This attitude had changed dramatically since he had been chosen. The urban legends of Sentinels and Guides in the military benefited him greatly in this aspect and he hoped he could live up to the expectations of the men and women under his command.

“I never heard of a Sentinel in any leading position”, Weir protested vehemently.

“Yes. But that is not a case of them not being offered promotion, but of them not wanting to be promoted out of the field”, Bates answered. “They are driven to protect their fellow soldiers, they couldn’t do that from somewhere behind a desk!”

John nodded solemnly. “That’s right. I have no idea, how I will be able to sit back while sending the men and women under my command out on missions.” He would probably find a way, because he couldn’t imagine to leave the expedition – his Tribe – with this exact same situation a second time. He hadn’t understood why Sumner had come with them to Athos risking his own life, but he hadn’t been in a position to protest this decision. “We need to stop wasting our time with this discussion. We are here to decide what to do with the mission to the Genii-world.”

“If Sargent Bates hadn’t defied my orders, this mission would have taken place days ago!” Weir frowned. “The mission schedule should not have been set aside, only because you needed time to … bond.”

John inhaled deeply. He would not discuss with her, that no military asset had ever stood under her command, even before the choosing. “What do you know about the circumstances of choosings on Earth, Dr. Weir?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about”, Weir snapped.

“I was two times a witness to a choosing on Earth.” John crossed his arms. “Both times the planned operation was shut down immediately. Not because the new pair needed time, but because history has shown us, that a choosing only happens when there is a dire need for it. Every member of the military expected a choosing weeks ago. We are all stunned, that there happened five at one time. And it makes me extremely cautious about the Genii.”

“The Genii are farmers, Major”, Teyla said frowning.

John inclined his head. “That is what you know about them, Teyla. Could and would they hide it, if there was more to their society?”

The hidden library of the Hoff had given John an excellent insight in the mindset of the humans of Pegasus. The urge to fight for their survival, for the survival of their tribe, was so deeply ingrained in humans, even here. The people of Hoff wouldn’t be the only ones who had found a way to hide and preserve their history and their accomplishments.

“I … I imagine, it is a possibility”, Teyla conceded.

“We need to find trading partner!”, Weir reminded forceful. “We have to find a reliable food source.”

“Those two things aren’t necessary connected.” It was the first time Rodney even looked up from his laptop since he had sat down besides Johns. “Botany and Engineering are working around the clock in three shifts to bring up the hydroponic plants. Teyla’s people helped to identify edible plants on the mainland and they help to hunt for game and fish. It will be work, but we have all necessary resources to be self sufficient.”

“Don’t you think we could use those workforces for better things?”, Weir asked condescending.

Rodney blinked. “I like to eat. Especially as I have a medical condition that requires, I eat on a regular schedule. So, no, I don’t think there are better things those people can work on. I wanted them to work on hydroponics weeks ago and I never understood why you blocked those plans.”

“It will cost us less if we trade for food”, Weir insisted.

Rodney scoffed. “Except we have nothing to trade with.”

“We can trade with our medicine, lad.” Beckett shook his head. “We have whole creates of medical supplies that are only for that purpose.”

“Whoever had this brilliant idea clearly didn’t even finish High School!”, Rodney muttered.

“Rodney!” Beckett looked scandalised.

John send him a dark look. “Rodney is right, Dr. Beckett. Do we have the medical personal to spare to administer these medicines? Or will we just give our trading partners a list with instructions on how to use them and trust our luck that they won’t overdose and kill themselves with the things we give them?”

“And we don’t even know if the humans in this galaxy would react the same way. Even on earth there are people, who have bad reactions to meds!” Rodney crossed his arms. “We should learn from the things we let happen on Hoff! We ran a simulation of their drug based on the biology we know about our own race. And it killed half of them.”

Weir frowned. “’Our own race’? Do you even know how that sounds?”

Rodney snorted. “Clearly you haven’t thought about the scientific ramifications, that there was no contact between this galaxy and our own for ten thousand years. The Ancients may have seeded the human live in both galaxies, but we don’t even know if they really did it from the same basic specimen. And even if they did, there are – ten. Thousand. Years! - of fundamentally different evolution between us. It is justified to say that we are two different species.”

Beckett had paled. “I … I hadn’t either.”

“Obviously”, Rodney snapped. “We all got carried away with the Hoffans. That has to stop.”

“And it will.” John put his hand on his Guides thigh as the cheetah appeared, that had chosen McKay as its human. It was a disturbing subject for Rodney and there was a lot more guilt, than John had expected.

Weir moved away from Rodney as much as possible without being overly obvious, clearly disturbed by the spirit animal. “Can’t you control this … animal, McKay?”

“No.” Rodney shrugged. “Coming back to the point of this meeting. We have nothing to trade with the Genii.”

“We should never the less take a good look at them”, John said. “I want to know what we have to expect from them. - Markham and Stackhouse, as you are the more senior military S&G-pair we have, I want you to lead this mission. Teyla will be your guide and you’ll take a forth person, who that will be is your decision. You have 48 hours to prepare.”

“You were scheduled for this mission, Major Sheppard”, Weir protested. “I don’t see any reason to change that.”

John inclined his head. “There is every reason to change it. To take first contact missions isn’t in my job description any more. - Rodney, is it possible to fly a cloaked Jumper through the gate?”

“I don’t see any reason, why it shouldn’t. We can test it.”

John nodded. “We should. Sargent Bates, you and McKay will find a timeslot in the next two days, to do this.” He ignored Weir’s attempt to interrupt him and looked to the other pair, of which both Sentinel and Guide were military. “Willson and Moore, if we can bring a Jumper undetected trough the gate, both of you and Lieutenant Ford will be on side back up for the Genii-mission.”

“Yes, Sir!”, was answered three times.

“They should use the opportunity and scan the planet”, Rodney interjected while immersed in some program on his laptop. “Maybe the problem isn’t these farmers itself but something on their planet.”

Moore looked to his Sentinel who shrugged and shook his head. “Someone of your people will have to show us, what these scans would look like, Dr. McKay.”

Rodney waved a hand. “No problem. There are in depth scans of this planet planed anyway. We can put them on the schedule immediately and can use it as a learning experience for you at the same time.”

John nodded. He knew it would also be a good opportunity for various other tests. All of the newly chosen Sentinels and Guides had an active or recessive ATA-gene and Rodney wanted to test, if there had been any change in how they could interact with Ancient technology. But they both knew, they shouldn’t discuss these things in front of Weir.

He let his gaze wonder to the other two S&G-pairs. John didn’t see a problem with Abrams and Simpson, both were scientists and they could probably find a way to manage their bond and their job easily enough. It wouldn’t be as easy with Dr. Grodin and Lieutenant Crown, who where like John and Rodney a military Sentinel and scientist Guide.

“You four will have another two days of downtime”, John told them. “After the Genii-mission I want you to present me a plan, how to merge your new position with your jobs on this city.” He looked to Bates. “The exploration of the city is on schedule?”

“Mostly, Sir”, Bates confirmed.

“When we know what’s up with the Genii, we will talk about a new Of-World-Schedule. I think we need to shift our focus a little bit. - Dismissed, Ladies and Gentlemen.” John didn’t wait to give Weir a chance to protest, before he left the room with Rodney right on his heels.

  
  


Rodney was standing on the balcony of their new quarters, when John came out of the shower. In the exact moment of the choosing the Atlantis database had revealed not only the location of the isolationrooms they had used in the first days, but also these quarters, that gave the Sentinel’s senses and the Guide’s empathy enough buffer to rest, without cutting them of from the city.

John leaned against Rodney’s back, put his arms around him and pressed his nose in the neck of his Guide. “I’m really glad I can do these things now without fearing repercussion.” When the panther had chosen him in the middle of the gateroom, he hadn’t known if he wanted to accept the choosing. But than he had seen the cheetah in front of McKay and all the things he had longed for since Antarctica had become possible. John would never forget the look he had exchanged with his soon to be Guide before they both had accepted the offer of the spirit animals.

Rodney snorted. “I never understood the blatant contradictions in the military law of your country. - Elizabeth will be a big problem. An even bigger one, when we have reconnected with Earth, I imagine.”

“Probably. We will have to work around her. There are only a few scientists on this city, that haven’t recognised her as the problem she is. Most of our people will help us in working around her. And we shouldn’t worry about Earth as long as we don’t have enough energy to contact them.”

“Or they send a ship”, Rodney said.

John sighed. “Or that. But I’m not sure if they will send a ship as long, as they haven’t heard anything from us. There happened a lot of things in the background, that I’m seeing just now a pattern in. Earth really isn’t our biggest problem out here.”

“Food, the Wraith, energy, and if our bad luck holds the Genii will be a part of this list.” Rodney inhaled sharply. “I was reviewing the data of the Jumper, while you were running. It doesn’t bode well combined with the things, Markham and Stackhouse had to say. You remember how Markham said he could smell something strange but couldn’t place it?”

John nodded.

“I think he could smell their bodies reactions to radiation poising. I don’t think anyone of us should go back there. We don’t need something like Kelowna happening to us!”

John frowned at Rodney’s hands, that had taken a hard hold on the railing of the balcony. “I have no idea what happened with … Kelowna.”

“It was how Jackson first ascended. He sacrificed himself to stop one of their experiments to explode and got radiation poising. It killed him in a matter of days”, Rodney explained. “The Genii wont know any better than the Kelownans. There are several square miles of underground bunkers. And all over this area is the radiation elevated. They are poising themselves.”

John was drawing soothing circles with his hand over his Guide’s chest. “They are using the same strategy as the Hoffans, hiding their society in the underground and probably searching for weapons against the Wraith. But there is a marked difference between the Hoffans and the Genii that I don’t like.”

“Greed”, Rodney muttered. “Markham and Stackhouse both said, this Cowen person was reeking of greed, physical and emotional. And if they are building bombs … It’s not just the Wraith they could use these bombs against. - And they aren’t only hiding in the underground. Teyla said, the Genii are known food traders over several worlds. The farms on this planet wouldn’t even sustain the amount of people, the Jumper detected in the bunkers.”

“It was a good idea to send our people in athosian clothes and without our weapons. I’m not sure how the Genii would have reacted to those.” They knew the Genii had advanced projectile weapons, the Jumper had detected them on a dozen of the people in the tavern. John sighed. “With the timely choosing and the things our people learned today, I think we should go out of our way to stay off the radar of the Genii.”

“Agreed.” Rodney turned to look at him. “And we should send a team back to Hoff. We were angry when we left and rightly so. But … it was their decision to make and … we aren’t in any position where we could even hope to understand their culture or have a right to judge their decisions. We violated our own procedures while on Hoff. But we can’t hold them responsible, that they did not hold up to our procedures.”

“And that they sacrificed half their population?”, John asked. “Shouldn’t we hold them up to this decision?”

Rodney shook his head. “I think we have to set our own moral standard aside while dealing with Pegasus natives. - I learned a lot about the Athosians in this last week. Teyla understands what the Hoffans did on a level no one of us does. To choose their own death is … a blessing in this galaxy. The only thing that made Teyla hesitate about this drug was the repercussion of the Wraith, not the mortality rate under those who took it.”

“I’m not comfortable with the implications of this.”

“Me neither.” Rodney sighed. “We have lived a very sheltered life on Earth. And we had a very bad start in this galaxy. - Why do we judge the Hoffans so harshly, but left those kids to their suicide cult?”

John closed his eyes. “I asked Elizabeth if we could give them an alternative. She said we shouldn’t play Missionaries and destroy their culture.”

“Missionaries?” Rodney snorted. “What the fuck!”

“Right?” John shrugged helplessly. “I want to help those kids, but do we have the resources for this? And there is a tiny little point in what Weir said. Why should these kids be interested in the things we have to offer?”

“Maybe not all at the beginning. But surly there will be a few who will be happy not to have to kill themselves.” Rodney met his gaze firmly. “Our choosing … I feel … We weren’t chosen as defenders of Earth, John. We were chosen as defenders of Atlantis and Pegasus. I spoke with Simson and Grodin about this. They and their Sentinels feel the same.”

John inhaled sharply. “Yes.” It was disconcerting. He felt a deep loyalty to Earth, but his sense of obligation had shifted since the choosing. He couldn’t see himself returning to Earth as long as a single Wraith lived, and it had nothing to do with the fact, that he had essentially awoken the Wraith.

“Did you see the other side of the gate during the choosing?”, John asked quietly. “There were so many spirit animals waiting. There will be other choosings, if we bring the right people to Atlantis. I think both Bates and Teyla felt it, but there was no potential partner for them on the city.”

“So we change our mission directive”, Rodney concluded.

John shook his head. “We’ll add to it. We’ll search for the technology and weapons the IOA wants. And in our fight for survival in this galaxy we will take on any help we can get. If this means to populate this city with natives, so be it. We started with the Athosians, the rest will just be a continuation of this.”

**Author's Note:**

> Still new to writing in English. If there were any blatant mistakes in grammar or words used awkwardly/wrong, feel free to help me learn do better. (I don’t mean typos etc., just things that really destroy the reading flow.)


End file.
